With the proliferation of media sources and the introduction of new ways to access information content, individuals today have access to more information than ever before, often on a real-time or near real-time basis. However, given the large number of media and information sources (television, radio, newspapers, magazines, e-mails, Internet, etc.), it can be very time consuming for individuals to monitor the media and information sources for information content that may be of interest to them. As such, in many circumstances, individuals may never learn of available, highly pertinent, information content, or may not learn about such content until well after a relevant event has occurred when the value of the information content may be much lower.
Methods and systems for alerting individuals about certain events are known in the art. For example, an individual may want to check a book out of a library that is already checked out by someone else. In this situation, the library may take down the user's request, and then call the individual (perhaps using an automated call-back system) once the book has been returned such that it is available to be checked-out. As another example, various internet sites such as sites run by CNN and the Washington Post provide e-mail alert services. Individuals who access the site may sign-up for and/or subscribe to a service whereby the user is provided an e-mail alert when information content that may be of particular interest to the user becomes available. For example, a user of the site that is interested in a particular professional sports team may sign up for e-mail alerts such that when an article or headline relating to the team is published on the website, the user is sent an e-mail alert with a hyperlink to the published article or headline.